Journalists detained, released in Vietnam clampdown

Bangkok,
July 11, 2011--Authorities must stop harassing journalists reporting on
public demonstrations in Vietnam,
the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On Sunday, police detained and
interrogated three reporters who were covering anti-China protests in Hanoi where around a dozen
demonstrators were arrested.

Hau
Dinh, a news assistant with Associated Press Television, was forced onto a bus
by armed police while he was filming the protest near China's embassy, according
to international news reports. Dinh was held in police custody for more
than three hours before he was released, according to AP.

Police
said that two other Vietnamese journalists, a cameraman with Japanese
television broadcaster NHK and a news assistant with the Japanese daily
newspaper Asahi Shimbun, were also
detained. Agence France-Presse cited an NHK company statement saying that their
cameraman had been released after questioning.

Reporters
had previously been permitted to photograph and film the small rallies which
had been held in the national capital on five consecutive Sundays. They were
sparked initially by rising tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Sunday's crackdown came after officials
from China and Vietnam
agreed in a joint statement to negotiate a peaceful solution to their competing
claims. With possible oil and natural gas reserves, international boundaries in
the area have long been under dispute, and many of the area's islands are
claimed by both countries and several other Asian nations.

"Journalists
are not pawns to be used in Vietnam's
dealings with China," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast
Asia representative. "Vietnam should allow free reporting
of these protests. It should also release the four bloggers currently held in
detention for posting materials critical of China
or the government's policies towards China."

As bilateral
tensions have risen in recent months, CPJ monitoring found that the
state-controlled local media had been allowed to report more freely on certain
issues related China,
including the territorial disputes. It's unclear whether Sunday's clampdown on
protesters and reporters signals an end to that brief, limited opening.